Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri yesterday launched an indirect diplomatic broadside at Australia over its stance on illegal immigrants.

Opening an international conference on people smuggling in Bali, co-hosted by Australia, Mrs Megawati condemned countries that did whatever they wanted to protect their national interests.

Although she did not name Australia, most observers considered her comments to be a veiled attack on the Federal Government's Pacific solution to the boat people problem.

"We have witnessed some impatient governments taking unilateral steps to protect their national interest," Mrs Megawati told the conference. "No matter how broad the scope and boundary we are delineating for our national interest, and how confident we are in our justification to defend such interest, still it does not allow us to do whatever we want."

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer emerged from the opening ceremony to assert that the president had not been referring to Australia, suggesting instead that Mrs Megawati could have been talking about Malaysia. He said his assurances came from senior Indonesian officials, rather than the president herself.

Mr Downer said he did not directly ask the president who she was referring to because he did not feel "defensive". "We are not doing any spinning about anything," Mr Downer said. "I know exactly what this is a reference to ... it's to do with the treatment of Indonesian citizens in other countries," he said.

Asked whether he was referring to Malaysia, which periodically sends back thousands of Indonesian illegal migrant workers every month, he said he could not comment. "It's nothing to do with Australia, it has no relationship to us," he said.

Meanwhile Indonesian foreign affairs officials scrambled to play down the remarks. "I can categorically say that this statement has not and is not intended to be directed against any particular country, including and especially Australia," Indonesian director of international organisations, Dr Marty Natalagawa told reporters.

But the media-shy Mrs Megawati, who is well known for indirect remarks, outlined for criticism a national approach that bore a close resemblance to Prime Minister John Howard's during last year's Tampa crisis. Mrs Megawati last year took offence at the federal government's sudden implementation of a tough new stance on stopping asylum seekers from entering Australia.

In August Mr Howard announced he would not allow the Norwegian freighter Tampa to deliver more than 430 asylum seekers to Christmas Island. Mr Howard made the announcement and said he would be talking with Mrs Megawati, before informing Jakarta. But Mrs Megawati refused to take Mr Howard's phone calls after the event and Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda later criticised Australia's handling of the affair calling it "megaphone diplomacy".

Indonesia defused the stand-off between Jakarta and Canberra last year by proposing to address the matter collectively within the region, paving the way for this week's conference on people smuggling.

Mrs Megawati declared Indonesia was "firmly committed to address the issues of illegal migrants, particularly that of people smuggling". "But again, as I have pointed out earlier, we are well aware that our unilateral action cannot thoroughly resolve the problems," she said. Mrs Megawati said unilateral action was ineffective and provoked negative judgement from others.

She also emphasised the lot of asylum seekers and their reasons for fleeing their homelands, remarking that there were 3,500 illegal migrants in Indonesia under the care of international agencies. "A valuable lesson we should learn from this phenomenon is that we need to work together to address the root causes of the problem," she said.